BECOMING FEWER
WHITEBAIT IN NEW ZEALAND
A BIG DECREASE IN VAL,UE.
CHRISTCHURCH, August 26.
Whitebait (are graludally becoming fewer in numbers, according to.,a : staie~-. mtjnt made by an expert on the subject when discussing this morning the habits of the fish. Five years ago, he said, local whitebait would arrive on the Christchurch .market in -parcels weighing up (to 301bj ' but now .they arrived in parcels weighing as many ounces. This state ,of -affairs A was not. confined to Canterbury, but jffis com-, mon whenever iwhitebgit were caught in ■New Zealand.
“It seems a great .pity that .some-; thing could not be don© to step -the disappears^e of the delicacy,’’ he said. “The Inspector of Fisheries h& be-S-r making investigations to find, out hov. .and why the, fish are .decreasing, am’ ■he has 'found , that the whitebait, spcwi ■ Which .is deposited : Qn the..reeds..bprd& ing itidai .-streams,... iv "being trample- : .underfoot by cattle, other .animals, iin ’jum-pn ibaingst Thus (the.- spawn is killed before ,it has a ..chance to hate:-. “My personal .belief is that the white. ,bait are .being l .killed pff by ithe- , ravage of ,trout. One .trout .will eat ,a whp Ic,shoal of whitebait, numbering ; thous .ands, ,in..a . very- ,t:me, and -jit. -must be remembered that,the- trout it on the * gob twpntydour -..hor.ru- ,of - - v th? day. It- cannot,.,be-said (the .the of . .wlhitebait "locally is . tespousibl.A ..-for the ideoreaso 1 in -numbers.”
Supplies pf ,whitebait .reach: Christchurch from .the West Coast and ;froni a* .far south ;as (Invercargill. The eem son :is .just starting now, • wi'.l i-each-itW peak, about October, and -will then.-wane gradually- till. the -supplies - stop about Christmas. -Some years ago,-, .whitebaitat - the, beginning of the'season, (actu-ally-sold .at-9s .a -pound, but .now .the pile© is about 5 S a pound. When the .season is in • full • swing, ,the delicacy fetches about. Is- 6d a pint.
New' Zealand -whitebait '■ .are considered. unique->in quality and -in - delicacy. English and other overseas whitebait cannot compare with ;, whitebait' caught jn (New Zealand water--;, and for that reason whitebait " canfied •here finds a .ready export. /, \
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19320827.2.57
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Hokitika Guardian, 27 August 1932, Page 6
Word count
Tapeke kupu
344BECOMING FEWER Hokitika Guardian, 27 August 1932, Page 6
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
The Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd is the copyright owner for the Hokitika Guardian. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of the Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in